The COVID-19 pandemic has brought many challenges – one of the biggest being the shortage of healthcare workers throughout the industry. In Houston, Baton Rouge, and other cities hit particularly hard, shortages continue to grow as the virus spreads, making it increasingly difficult for hospitals to cope with the influx of cases. In Florida, as COVID patients continue to test positive in record numbers, finding enough experienced workers to attend to the critically ill patients is becoming increasingly difficult.
Across the United States, another pressing issue looms: testing. Testing before asymptomatic carriers spread the virus is vitally important to controlling the pandemic’s reach. However, many sites are having trouble finding qualified staff to perform this testing – leaving them overworked, understaffed, and with a high employee turnover rate. As the system begins to reach its maximum capacity during this secondary surge – and as healthcare professionals themselves begin to get sick and quarantine — hospitals, nursing homes, and other healthcare facilities are all in need of additional help and backup staff.
Our Commitment to Our Clients – Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Choosing where to focus our efforts to address the issues resulting from the pandemic was a difficult task. As healthcare recruiters, our business model is designed to allow us to quickly provide help when our clients – and, most importantly, their patients – need us. Here’s what we are doing to help our clients address the challenges brought on by the pandemic.
Staffing Testing Sites
With COVID-related healthcare needs rapidly and urgently increasing, we knew that it was vitally important to place providers where they would make the greatest impact, and that meant staffing static and pop-up COVID testing sites – specifically in underserved populations. By doing so, we were able to serve locations having difficulty remaining staffed so they could continue the vital work of testing patients. These pop-up and static testing sites have contributed to the over 74 million tests that have now been performed in the United States. In cases of communicable outbreaks, such testing is vital not only for patient care, but also for understanding and tracking the spread of the disease. Without reliable data from testing, researchers and healthcare providers are unable to pinpoint trends and insights that help with the development of treatment options and mitigation of infection rates.
Creating a Plan for the Future
The hiring process has changed significantly as both healthcare organizations and their staffing partners have adapted to a virtual environment, but the industry continues to find strength in collaboration – sharing everything from PPE inventory and employees to innovative ideas and insight. For our part in this process, we have expanded the staffing services that began to address testing site shortages into a full staffing service line for healthcare organizations and providers. This service has already enabled us to address the staffing needs of vital COVID-19 care sites, including nursing homes, hospitals, community clinics, and other healthcare centers in need. By compiling and thoroughly vetting a broad database of nurses, nurse practitioners, CNAs, medical assistants, physician assistants, and other mid-level providers, we are able to respond swiftly to staffing needs for clients across the country. This allows them to focus on mission critical items without sacrificing the recruitment of top-tier staff to serve as permanent or interim support as they cope with the continued demands of COVID-19 patient care.
As we move towards the next phase of the pandemic, we cannot predict what will happen, but we can continue to prepare. By connecting in new ways and evolving our solutions alongside the evolving needs of healthcare systems and hospitals across the country, staffing and recruitment companies will continue to play a critical role in the current pandemic and beyond. If you have urgent healthcare staffing needs, we’re here to help – contact us today.
